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| Stefan Smulovitz, April 13, 2018 |
“You have to be with other people, he thought. In order to live at all. I mean before they came here I could stand it... But now it has changed. You can't go back, he thought. You can't go from people to nonpeople." - J.R. Isidore”
Philip K. Dick - Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
After having returned from a week in NY City in January and having seen the Michelangelo exhibit at the Met, Vancouver more than ever feels provincial (in the old meaning of the world).
I am not attracted to local art/photography shows. They seem
mediocre and banal with too much of that (to me) nasty concept of conceptual.
But then I am rewarded by Turning Point Ensemble concerts,
Early Music Vancouver concerts and Sunday Series dance performances courtesy of
that gem that is the Arts Umbrella Dance Company.
But rarely am I really impressed to the point of saying to
myself, “In Vancouver, only? Pity!”
Since I arrived in this city I 1975 I have noticed a
cultural underground that I have labeled the Petit Avant-Garde. In the 80s by
word of mouth there would be Art Bergmann concerts in houses or locations in
West Hastings that I knew about simply by word of mouth. These one-of events
happened only for one night. They were never advertised in standard
media. Perhaps it had to do with serving booze without a license or simply
making a lot of noise.
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| Jeff Younger |
I went to one such event last night in an unmarked location
in East Vancouver not far from the former sweets refinery.
I went with my friend and music connoisseur, graphic
designer, Graham Walker. We braved walking many blocks in a constant rain
reminiscent of what we were going to experience when the show finally began at
10pm.
We were seated in a comfortable leather sofa. In front of us
there was a jumble of electronic equipment and assorted musical instruments. On
the wall there was a rumpled white sheet.
Walker and I were there to witness a performance that would
be laudable anywhere else in the world. The musicians were skilled. One of them, Stefan Smulovitz,
had done this sort of thing hundreds of times before. But there was an
enthusiasm in his face that almost seemed fanatical.
The lights went out and Ridley Scott’s 1962 Blade Runner was
projected on the sheet with subtitles. There was no film sound. There was no
Vangelis soundtrack. What we had was music improvised by two musicians who had never
played together before.
Stefan Smulovitz - laptop, violin, Kenaxis, various sound
makers
Jeff Younger - guitar, electronics, found sounds
Smulovitz’s original career instrument has always been the
viola. He originally wanted to play the trombone but his mother insisted that
since his grandmother had played the streets of Stochholm with a violin that he
should play a string instrument, too. The night’s performance was on that very
violin.
At first I noticed the music. It was very good, not pleasant, edgy, but just right and matching the striking scenes of a film I had almost
forgotten I had ever seen. After a while the improvised music was not
emanating from the musicians in front of me but somehow from the film. Walker
whispered in my ear, “This is really a silent film performance.”
I used to say that my proof for the nonexistence of a higher
being was that Art Bergmann never became a world-famous millionaire.
Last night listening and watching an event with no parallel,
all I could think was that a higher being was asleep at the wheel.
